I was in exam-mode, it's funny how many details you can remember in these moments...
From what I remember of the lesson, recently etology has been proving that most of the "animals are only guided by instinct" thing is wrong: complex behaviours like mothering or hunting are learned. That's why when some well-meaning idiots release lab animals in the wild they tend to die after a few days: no one's taught them how to behave outside of a cage and they don't even know how to get their food. Here some activists released a few hundred minks and most of them didn't survive, I'm still slightly pissed.
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timeasmymeasure
sorry for the complete OOT-ness, can't resist ^_^;
Date: 2007-05-16 11:23 am (UTC)From what I remember of the lesson, recently etology has been proving that most of the "animals are only guided by instinct" thing is wrong: complex behaviours like mothering or hunting are learned. That's why when some well-meaning idiots release lab animals in the wild they tend to die after a few days: no one's taught them how to behave outside of a cage and they don't even know how to get their food. Here some activists released a few hundred minks and most of them didn't survive, I'm still slightly pissed.